


Two Birds, Two Bats, One City

by completelyhopeless



Series: Two Circus Birds [14]
Category: DCU, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe, Community: comment_fic, Gen, Some Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-31
Updated: 2014-12-31
Packaged: 2018-03-04 15:09:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,148
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3072488
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/completelyhopeless/pseuds/completelyhopeless
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Batman leaves for a Justice League mission. Commissioner Gordon is arrested for a crime he didn't commit. With the two maintainers of order in Gotham out of reach, it's up to Robin and Hawkeye to keep the city in line. Even with Alfred's help, though, the boys are overworked and need a bit of help from Barbara, who is determined to free her father.</p><p>Or... How Babs becomes Batgirl in this two bird universe.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Two Birds, Two Bats, One City

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TourmalineQueen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TourmalineQueen/gifts).



> Once again, I'm drawing inspiration from comment_fic and the Animated Series. 
> 
> I took the circumstances (Gordon being framed) from the episode where Batgirl appears in the Animated Series, since that was the version I was the most familiar with and could blend easily into this universe with what I was doing.
> 
> And then there was this prompt on comment fic that helped, too, because it was right with the ending I had in mind for this section.
> 
> So, this is for the prompt: _[MCU, any +/ any, We don't have the same problems as normal people do we? TFLN](http://comment-fic.livejournal.com/543466.html?thread=77120490#t77120490)_
> 
> It just got very long. I swear it did not want to end.

* * *

“I'm honestly not sure which is weirder,” Dick said, fiddling with his cape as he tried to get it to attach like it should, like it did every night other than this one, like it was supposed to, like it was made to do. “Bruce acting like a dad or your brother wanting to become a cop.”

“Is it going to make things worse if I tell you Barney was probably just saying that to impress Babs?” Clint asked, tugging on his own mask. Dick gave it another look and shook his head. He didn't know how his friend could wear that, but then Clint always said that about Robin's costume, so he supposed they were even.

“Yes,” Dick said. He let out a breath. “And no. Babs is free to go out with whoever she wants. I like to think she's too smart to get involved with Barney, but it's still her choice. I will still hurt him if he does anything to her, but she's gonna do it first, and when she does, I'm getting pictures. No, video. Definitely video.”

Clint laughed. “You know, I don't know why you and Barney can't get along. You'd have so much fun doing that kind of thing together.”

Dick sighed. “I think your brother's a jerk and he thinks I stole you. I don't think we'll ever get along. I know you've been trying, and I know you want it, and I'm sorry. I don't want to make things hard for you. I do everything I can to get along with Barney, but he pushes all the wrong buttons, and I swear it's all I can do not to deck him for _looking_ at Babs.”

“If it helps, I don't think he's actually doing it to mess with you. She's smart and pretty and he likes her. It's not just because he can work you up over it.”

Dick stopped, signing about the dinosaur and arrow, and Clint laughed. 

“Fine, he is. He's even more of a dick than you are.”

“I was waiting for you to say that,” Dick told him, still smiling. “So, Hawkeye. Ready to join Robin in patrolling the city?”

“No.”

“No?”

“I'm going to have fun with my best friend Dick. I don't know why he dresses like a freak and calls himself by another name. That's something his shrink will have to answer.”

Dick lunged for him, but Clint had already fired off an arrow with a grappling hook and was gone.

* * *

“Batman picked a lousy time to leave the city.”

Next to Clint, Dick snorted. “There's never really a good time to leave Gotham. It's always one step from complete madness. Batman holds it back, but if he's not here to do it... Well, it all goes to pieces again.”

Clint shoved at Dick's cape, hating that stupid thing. He didn't know why someone hadn't sniped them yet because it was a damned beacon and one of these days, it would get Dick killed. “So he leaves you in charge of this mess.”

“Clint, he ditched both of us for the Justice League. He did not leave me in charge of anything. He must have said and repeated in every language he knows and I know and even the ones he's just starting to make me learn that I wasn't supposed to go out on my own, that I should leave things to the police and just pass along tips to Gordon if I got them but under no circumstances handle them on my own.”

Pulling an arrow out of his quiver, Clint lined it up against his bow and took aim at the street below. “You know he's going to be pissed at both of us when he finds out your definition of 'not alone' was to take me with you.”

Dick shrugged. “I don't care. If he hates it, we can leave. I don't have to have his money, and I don't—I'll miss Alfred, but I can still see him. And I'll miss Babs, too. What else is there? I hate my school, I haven't really made any friends besides you, and Batman hates having anyone else work in his city, so even though I know some of the other Justice League members have sidekicks and there could be this whole sidekick party going on, I've actually never met them because Batman is... an antisocial nutjob in a cape.”

Clint looked at him. “Are you sure he can't hear us now? Because I swear you're baiting him.”

“He can't, or he'd already be yelling at us. And I'm not baiting him. I'm just... frustrated again. He was acting like my dad before he left, which kind of explains the pat on the head and lecture on not doing anything dangerous, but seriously... If it's only okay to be Robin when he's around, why did he leave? And why even bother making me Robin in the first place if he doesn't trust me?”

“Does he trust anyone?”

“Good point. The answer is no. I think. No, it's not. He trusts Alfred.”

Clint let the arrow go, hearing the thug scream when it hit him. “Yeah. So... why does everyone think this guy is a hero again?”

“Because they don't know him,” Dick answered. He grinned. “Nice shot. I hate that you never miss. It's not fair.”

“If you didn't let technology do the aiming for you, you'd be better at it.”

“My eyes don't compare to yours and you know it.”

Clint almost smiled. “You know they don't have to. You're good at this. Better than you have any right to be.”

Dick took out a batarang and let it fly toward another thug. “I don't even know why they call me the Boy Wonder. I'm a cheap knock off and everyone knows it. Nothing without the Bat.”

Clint frowned. “Dick—”

“Babs' dad is in jail for taking bribes—and we all know he didn't do it—and what can I do? Hit a guy with one of Batman's toys and pretend I'm doing something? Yeah, right. At least you really can shoot. I feel so... helpless all over again. It's like my parents dying or the sonic gang or... Or the fact that Swordsman is _still_ out there. Hell, it's Zucco's gang, the one Swordsman works with, that supposedly bribed Gordon. He is ruining another life—two lives—and I can't stop it. Again.”

Clint elbowed him. “We're in costume, so hugging would be so weird and twisted I don't want to think about it, so I won't even if you maybe need it. I _am_ going to push you off the roof next, get you to clear your head—don't look at me like that, you think better in the air—and then we'll decide what we're doing about Swordsman. And Gordon.”

“Fine,” Dick said, but he held up a hand. “Just don't get any ideas—I'm not _your_ sidekick.”

Clint laughed.

* * *

“I don't believe this,” Barbara said. “I risk everything and turn on the batsignal and I get _you?”_

Robin hopped down next to her. “It's not like it has voicemail. Would you like to leave a message for Batman, because he's kind of unavailable at the moment.”

“Unavailable? That your cute way of saying he's not going to help defend the one cop in this city that actually likes him? My father stuck his neck out for Batman, and this is the kind of repayment he gets? He cleans up the force and gets accused of corruption and Batman just lets it happen.”

Robin folded his arms over his chest. “To be fair, Batman was gone _before_ the allegations against your father were raised. It's just not something you can let become common knowledge because Gotham goes to hell every time he's gone.”

“What, the Boy Wonder can't handle it?”

Robin's mouth thinned into a line. She frowned. The cape, the mask, the way this kid talked, it was all an act. He _was_ younger than she was, and he was in over his head. He'd almost admitted as much a minute ago when he said he couldn't let anyone know Batman was gone. But if Batman was gone, then who was going to help her father? A teenage kid trying to keep Gotham from going to hell on his own?

“I know your father didn't do it. I can't prove it, but I'm working on it. I just... Had a little bit of a sidetrack come up when Killer Croc decided it was a good time to play hide-n-seek in the sewers. I don't think that smell is ever coming out of my mask.”

“Gross.”

“Tell me about it.”

She frowned again. Something about this was familiar, almost _too_ familiar, and she opened her mouth to say so when Robin took out his grappling hook. “Wait a minute—”

“I have to go. Zucco's gang is making trouble down at the docks. We'll get your father free and his name clear. I promise. I just... Have to go.”

And then Robin was gone.

She stood there for a moment, and then she knew that if Batman couldn't help her father, she'd do it on her own. Though—Robin had a point. Gotham needed to believe Batman was there. Maybe she could do something about that, too.

* * *

“Master Richard, you need to rest.”

“I will sleep when I'm dead,” Dick muttered, taking off his mask and slumping into the chair in front of the computer in the batcave. “I don't get it. How is it that with all the members of Swordsman's gang we've found and disabled, there's still more of them out there?”

“Rats,” Clint said, dropping his bow next to Dick's arm. “They multiply like rats, and we keep seeing them come out of their sinking ship.”

“Or perhaps,” Alfred suggested, “with Commissioner Gordon unjustly imprisoned, someone is permitting their release back to the streets after you capture them.”

Dick looked at Clint. His friend nodded, and Dick groaned, putting his head on the desk. “I don't know how we're going to get Gordon free at this rate. None of them will talk, even with an arrow in them, and Swordsman's hiding. So's Zucco.”

Clint put a hand on Dick's shoulder. “You are doing all you can to help Babs.”

“It's not enough. Batman would know what to do.”

“Batman would be ordering both of you into your beds,” Alfred told them. “Which I will do anyway, knowing that you are both exhausted and in need of rest. You should both be—”

“Don't say in school. I hate that place,” Dick said, pushing himself up from the desk. His whole body ached. “You did call us both in sick today, right?”

“Yes, Master Richard. It would seem that you and Master Clinton have developed a terrible case of the flu and will not be in attendance for the next week.”

“Week?” Dick was torn between wanting to punch something and needing to hold onto it before he fell over. “Did Bruce actually tell you he'd be gone for a week?”

“At least.”

Clint shook his head. “You know, he could have mentioned that to one of us. I get he doesn't tell me anything, but Dick's his sidekick, right? Why the hell didn't he tell Robin?”

“I do not know,” Alfred said. “Whatever called him away must have been important, or he would not have gone nor stayed away while his good friend was in trouble. Please, boys. Both of you need to sleep. You may have to start doing so in shifts.”

“Yeah,” Dick said. He yawned. “Wait—Barney. What is he doing? Because he's going to notice that we're not here at night and he'll know we don't have the flu.”

“Please leave distracting Master Clinton's brother to me. I believe I have that well in hand.”

“Alright. Thanks, Alfie.”

* * *

“Shouldn't you be in school?”

“Shouldn't you know by now not to use the batsignal? Are you trying to get a revolt started in Arkham or do you just hate the world because your father's in prison?” Robin demanded. He rubbed at his forehead. “Is there a good reason for this? Because I don't think I've slept in almost three days, and I had just put my head on the pillow when you turned that damned thing on.”

“Grumpy much?” Barbara asked, and his eyes narrowed to slits in his mask. “Look, I think I found something on the men who are framing my father, but none of the cops I know—men and women who are supposedly my dad's friends—will do anything with it. Maybe you can.”

“You trust me with this?”

“You're Robin, aren't you?”

He almost looked like he wished he wasn't. “Yeah. I am. And thanks. I'm sorry. I just... haven't gotten much sleep and this thing has been like a brick wall, but maybe this is what we need.”

“Robin,” she said, stopping him before he could jump off the roof. “Be careful, okay? Without Batman, without my dad, you're all this city has.”

He forced a smile. “That has to be the least reassuring thought anyone has ever had.”

“I don't know. You seem kind of dedicated, Boy Wonder.”

He shook his head. “I wish I was dedicated to my bed. Hmm. Bed. Fluffy pillows. Comfortable sheets. No tights...”

“Get some sleep,” she said, shaking her head. “You are worse than Dick is when he's tired.”

“Not possible.”

* * *

“Do we have to wake him?” Clint asked, stopping next to Dick's bed and looking back at Alfred. “He's gotten less sleep than I have. The whole Robin thing—people know who he is, they expect him to answer, and he does.”

“Master Richard has done well in coping with his extra responsibility, but you are correct—he is the visible part of this operation with Master Bruce gone. This press conference is the ideal opportunity to reveal what Miss Barbara found in addition to the information you and Master Richard had already compiled. You can set Commissioner Gordon free.”

Clint let out a breath. “You mean _Robin_ can. Dick has to go do it.”

“I have never understood you to want more of a public role in any of your nighttime endeavors, Master Clinton,” Alfred said, and Clint grimaced. He didn't know why Alfred couldn't use a shortened form of _his_ name. He did understand why Alfred might not want to use Dick, especially when he went around saying “master” before everyone's name.

Master Dick. That was just _wrong._ No one better ever call him that.

Shaking the thought off, Clint looked at the butler. “No, I don't, not really. I work best when I find a perch and take people down from a distance. Dick has me beat good at a hand-to-hand. I don't want to be up close with these guys. Not even when I finally get to Swordsman and pay him back for what he did to Dick's parents. I'll hit him with an arrow first.”

Alfred nodded. “So then I suggest, since you have no desire to be the public face of this operation and Master Bruce is still absent, that you awaken Master Richard.”

“Dick, wake up. I think we got something,” Clint said, shaking his arm. “You have to be Robin again. Time to crash a press conference.”

* * *

“I think you let me sleep too long.”

Clint pulled an arrow from his quiver. “You think maybe we're both still dreaming? Because I swear that looks like Batman, and we'd know if he was back.”

“Because he would be screaming in our ears,” Dick muttered, rubbing his eyes. “That's not Batman. It's like what Alfred was doing with the Batmobile. Keeping up the illusion that Batman is in the city and not on some other planet or something.”

“Yeah, but Alfred didn't do that. He was going to leave the whole press conference to you as Robin. You're supposed to get down there and announce to everyone that Batman has proof that Swordsman and Zucco framed Gordon,” Clint reminded his friend, making sure his arrow was ready. “That is—if you're up to it.”

“Just tired. Not dead. Trying to figure out how to deal with the fake Batman because no one's going to listen to me when he's skulking on another building. Everyone's going to wonder why he's not the one telling them this.”

“I could shoot him.”

“Don't you dare. That's Babs.”

Clint turned to face him. “Are you _kidding_ me? And I suppose she knows you're Robin, too. Did you let something slip while you were meeting with her?”

“I don't know. Maybe,” Dick said, shrugging. “I don't know that I'll ever be as good as Bruce is with the whole two voices thing. I did try, but I think she might have figured it out a while ago. She's not an idiot.”

“No, she leaves that to you.”

“To you.”

Clint lowered his bow. “Do I have to kick you off the roof? Because I will if you don't get down there. I'll even put an arrow in your ridiculous cape and keep you there.”

“And here I thought we were friends,” Dick muttered, shaking his head as he flipped off the roof and swooped down to the platform. The press went crazy, snapping pictures and asking questions. Clint could see the men who'd called the conference weren't happy about his arrival or him jumping up to the podium. 

“Show off,” Clint grumbled. “Idiot.”

“I have proof that the charges against Commissioner Gordon are false,” Robin said. “They were fabricated by the Zucco gang working with—”

“Behind you,” Clint called out, letting an arrow fly and reaching for another even as the knifeman fell back from Dick and his friend flipped away from the man who would have killed him. Dick started searching the crowd, and Clint did the same, arrow ready for anyone who might go after his friend.

“He tried to kill Robin!”

“Where'd that arrow come from?”

“Commissioner Gordon _was_ framed. Someone just tried to kill the kid to stop him from telling us the truth.”

“I think it worked,” Clint said, still not liking the crowd and how close Dick was to any number of potential killers. He could see everything from up here, but there were too many of them. He had to work on his crowd skills, on finding the right threat. “Get out of there. Now.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Dick said, lifting up his grappling hook and taking aim. “You're worse than he is about giving orders, you know.”

Clint would have told him he could see the whole picture from up here, but he must have missed something, and now he could see nothing but smoke after the bomb went off. “Dick?”

* * *

It was supposed to be a very simple thing.

Robin had told her that Batman was out of town, but he'd also said Gotham needed to believe that he was there, so she'd figured all it would take was the right shadow. She wasn't planning on anything big, nothing flashy like Robin did all the time—little show off—but that all changed when someone tried to kill Dick.

And it _was_ Dick. She might have tried to tell herself she was wrong about it before, since Robin had an attitude and a different way of talking than her friend did, but she knew him. She knew the way he moved and the way he laughed and the way he did tricks. She knew Clint, too, and she didn't know anyone with that kind of aim, not even Green Arrow. That shot was Clint, and Clint would not have taken it to protect just any Robin.

She was dressed as Batman. She had a cape and cowl and a bit of fabric that looked enough like Batman to fool people from a distance. That was all she'd intended to do—make it look like Batman was supporting her father—and if it had gone like she'd hoped, it would have shown everyone that Batman was behind what Robin was saying and her father would go free.

Then someone tried to stab Robin and a bomb went off.

Batman was gone, but the whole crowd thought he wasn't, and what kind of man would leave his sidekick—a _kid_ —to that kind of fate? Batman was a hero, and since she was Batman, she had to be a hero.

This was not part of the plan. At all. She wasn't that stupid. She wasn't planning on taking anyone down herself, though she probably could have and actually _wanted_ a fight after seeing Barney Barton with another girl when he'd been pestering her for a date for three weeks. She'd told him off, but she would just as soon have hit him.

She could hit someone else instead.

She swooped down into the chaos below her, hoping her cape worked half as well as Batman's and she wouldn't end up killing herself.

* * *

“You know,” Dick said after watching Barbara take down two of Zucco's thugs. “Everyone will know you're a girl. It's not like it's not obvious.”

“Yeah?” She asked, looking over her shoulder. “And it was some kind of secret that you're _not_ a girl, Boy Wonder?”

“Please,” Dick muttered, throwing a handful of batarangs toward another group of thugs rushing toward them. Zucco's gang had to have been set free from prison to have these kinds of numbers, and he was getting sick of it. If he'd only been able to finish the press conference, they'd have told everyone that Gordon was framed and very likely expose the man on the inside. Instead, he got rushed, a bomb went off, and nothing had gone right since. “I'm not commenting on your work. I owe you.”

“Really?”

“A bomb went off near my feet, and I dodged as much as I could, but my balance is off,” he said. “I'm just saying that if the point was to make people think Batman was here, it kind of fails when you're obviously _not_ Batman.”

“Point taken,” she said, and he passed her one of his explosive discs, gesturing to the group on the other side of them. She rolled her eyes—that was just _wrong_ in a Batsuit—but did as he had suggested.

“They're still coming,” Clint said in his ear. “You've got another six—four—on the east side and five on the west, more from the north. They're surrounding you _and_ that crowd.”

“And this so feels like something Joker would do.”

Babs looked back at him. Dick forced a smile. “Not you. What the gang's doing. They're keeping us trapped here until he sets off one of those poison bombs that kills us all or something.”

“So we need a way out.”

“We could leave. We need a way to get _them_ out,” Dick said, jerking a hand toward the crowd. “What is with these guys, anyway?”

“Oh, I don't know,” Clint said. “Maybe it's because we've been hurting them for the last week. How many of them did we hospitalize?”

“Um, thirty, I think. Maybe more. I lost track.”

“Robin,” Babs hissed, knocking another guy over her shoulder. She twisted his arm, stepping on him to hold him in place. “Did that bomb hit you in the head? You're talking crazy to yourself.”

“Comms,” he said, pointing to his ear. “Wait. Bait. If they hate me for what we've done to their organization, then I can draw them away from the crowd easily.”

“You _are_ talking crazy.”

Dick grinned at her, though he knew if she didn't know who he was, she wouldn't be fussing so much about Robin doing something crazy. “Watch and learn, Batgirl. Crazy is what we do.”

* * *

“Crazy is what you do, huh?”

Clint shrugged, bending down to offer the girl a hand up. She glanced at it like she might not take it, but in the end, she did, getting up and dusting herself off. “He was right. It worked. I cleaned up the last of the ones around the crowd and made my way over to you.”

She glanced up to the rooftop where he'd been. “You jump off buildings like he does?”

Clint grinned. “All the time.”

“Lunatics. Both of you.”

Clint shrugged. “You already knew that, though. Come on. We need to find him.”

“After he abandoned me to a third of the gang and ran off _laughing?_ I don't think so,” Babs said—and it was Babs, she didn't really disguise her voice at all—shaking her head. “I'm not flattered by his vote of confidence, either.”

“He could have been a dick about it and insisted you had no place here,” Clint reminded her. “And I won't even tell him that one of them managed to take you down with him at the very end of the fight. The crowd's cleared out, Gotham is safe again, so let's go find Robin because he should have been back by now.”

“Thought you were on comms.”

“We are. He's not answering.”

* * *

“Well, if it isn't the big bat's little brat. How's Robin? Hmm?”

 _I think I might puke, actually,_ Dick thought, trying to control his reaction as he stood face-to-face with Swordsman again. Last time he'd seen this creep, he'd gone flying off a damn building and Batman had to save him. Now he was staring down his parents' murderer and wondering if he was any kind of hero or just a scared little boy again.

“I wanted to be the one that got you on the stage, but somehow I knew not to take that role,” Swordsman went on. He grinned. “Of course, now you've made it easy for me. I can still take down Robin and get some payback for the hassle you've given us lately.”

Dick swallowed. He was out of batarangs and smoke bombs. He'd used his bolas on one of the thugs chasing him. He could use his grappling hook, but that was just a way out of here, not a way to stop a guy that should have been stopped years ago. What did Batman do when he used up everything in his utility belt?

Oh, yeah, his fists.

Dick considered the right angle for approach, circling back. If he ran, flipped, and got the man from the back—no, he'd give Swordsman an easy shot at his cape, and he knew from training with Clint how much _that_ hurt—so he'd roll around sideways and maybe then he'd be in a better place to attack from.

“No quips? I thought Robin was all about the talk.”

Robin could talk plenty—when Robin wasn't facing down the man who killed his parents. That seemed to take Robin's voice away. He heard something behind him and ducked, looking up to see an arrow in Swordsman's shoulder.

“Damn you. You don't play fair, do you? All that time you were just setting me up for the archer,” Swordsman said, and Dick tried not to roll his eyes because Swordsman should have recognized his former protege's talent for bow shooting by now. Idiot. “Well, kid, I don't fight fair, either.”

Dick blinked. “What?”

He jumped up and flipped back but not far enough. The blast knocked him into the brick of the building behind him, and he groaned. Since when did Swordsman carry explosives?

* * *

“Twice in one night,” Clint said, and Barbara looked over at him, trying to understand how he could possibly be calm after seeing someone blow up his best friend. “Sadly, it's not even a record.”

“What?”

Clint moved forward, his bow in front of him until he seemed convinced there was no one else around. He lowered it and rushed over to Dick's side as the other boy stirred, trying to push himself away from the wall.

“Hold up,” Clint told him, pushing his friend back. “Wait before you move. I don't want you puking on me again.”

Dick grunted. “Not going to puke. Just going to kick myself for the next twenty years.”

“Swordsman _never_ carried bombs before,” Clint said. “How's your head?”

“We need to get you a new mask,” Dick said, leaning back and closing his eyes. “That one is making me nauseous.”

Clint rolled his eyes. “Sure, blame my _mask._ It has nothing to do with you getting yourself blown up twice tonight.”

“First one missed me. You just didn't see that because of all the smoke.” Dick looked past Clint and groaned again, falling forward against his friend. “I think that's our ride.”

Clint looked at the car and back at Barbara. “He's definitely got a concussion. Batman is going to kill us.”

She glanced down at her almost ruined costume. “Oh, yeah.”

* * *

“You okay?”

“Define 'okay,'” Dick said, looking over at his friend. Clint frowned, and Dick laughed a bit. “If you think about it, what is okay about any of this? We just spent a week taking on gangs and supervillians, we somehow managed to convince the world that Batman was still in Gotham when he wasn't, the man who killed my parents and put you in the hospital escaped again, we freed Commissioner Gordon but also revealed that half the cops in Gotham are still corrupt, accidentally made my other best friend a superhero, your brother sort of cheated on her, and we really, really pissed Batman off.”

“Because you got hurt.”

“It was just a concussion.”

“Last time it was your hearing.”

Dick looked at him. Clint was the one that was essentially deaf without Lucius' specially made hearing aids, not him. “I'm fine.”

“Sure you are. That's why Bruce is being even more overprotective than usual and barks at everyone, even Alfred, and yet won't come near your room because that would mean he cares—”

“Can we not discuss my screwed up relationship with my guardian and sort of father figure?” Dick asked, adding a grimace. “Or yours, for that matter.”

“Yes.”

“You ever wish for normal problems?” Dick asked, leaning back in his chair. “You know, school and bullies and teenage hormones and angst and all of that?”

Clint snorted, picking up his bow and fixing an arrow to it. “No.”

“Master Richard, Master Clinton.” They looked over to see Alfred in the doorway. “Master Bruce would like to know if you require a tutor in order to make up for all that you missed while you were out with the 'flu.'”

“This is a joke, right?”

Dick shook his friend. “Alfie doesn't have a sense of humor.”

“Indeed,” Alfred said. “Perhaps I shall call Mr. Coulson after all.”

Dick and Clint looked at each other. Alfred didn't have a sense of humor, but he had to be kidding, right? There was no way they'd hire Coulson again.

Was there?


End file.
